The present invention relates to a focal plane shutter with multiple shutter elements to be used in a photographic camera, and more particularly the invention relates to a focal plane shutter having plural, superimposed but movable lamellas.
Focal plane shutters using plural lamellas have the advantage that the lamellas occupy only very little space, particularly when in a position of opening the image aperture or gate in the camera. The height of that space is predominately determined by the height of the individual lamellas, and for a larger number of lamellas that height will be smaller.
The known, multiple lamella type shutters provide either for individual control and actuating operation for each of the lamellas, using a parallelogram-like lever linkage to be connected to each of the lamellas. Or, in the alternative, the first one of the lamellas is controlled by such a lever linkage while the others are linked to the first one via smaller paralelogram-like lever linkages. Unfortunately, the overall control mechanism in either case becomes rather bulky and expensive and inherently involves large masses which have to be moved. As the shutter drive mechanism has a particular power output, large masses to be moved pose inherently an impediment as to shutter speed. Moreover, the drive linkage is always connected directly to the lamellas which, in turn, requires the lamellas to have significant strength and/or thickness. Again, this is a feature which adds to the mass which has to be moved and is, therefore, an impediment for attaining high speeds of lamella movement.